


The Gold-shackled Singer, or the story of Erasmus and Kallias

by Fragiledewdrop



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: (Because he deserves it, Canon mentions of abuse, Canon mentions of rape, Character Death, Erasmus is freed, I promise, Kallias is a precious cinammon roll, Liberal use of greek poetry, M/M, Post-Kings Rising, but it has a happy ending, goddammit )
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-04 21:04:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6675388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fragiledewdrop/pseuds/Fragiledewdrop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When slavery is abolished in Patras, Erasmus becomes a poet.</p><p> </p><p>    "When he looked in the mirror, back in his rooms, he saw himself as what he had once been supposed to become: a royal slave, a living work of art, breathtaking and unattainable, skilled and delightfully submissive. But then he noticed the subtle cracks in that perfect picture, the flaws that were the result of a life fully lived: the calluses on his hands ; the jagged scars on his legs; the strong calves, and the feet that had walked thousands of miles; the scuff marks on his shackles, their gold no longer unblemished; the lack of a collar; the shadows hidden behind his eyes.</p><p>The figure before him was no slave, he thought.</p><p>That was a man.</p><p>That was simply Erasmus."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gold-shackled Singer, or the story of Erasmus and Kallias

**Author's Note:**

> For information about the references, the quotes and the foreign words used in this story, see the notes at the end.  
> If you find any mistake, don't hesitate to let me know ;)

 

When slavery is abolished in Patras, Erasmus doesn’t think it is real. He has been raised to serve: it’s what he IS, and he doesn’t know how to exist outside of the walls of a palace, the banquet halls of a lord, the bed of a prince.

His master- the man _who was_ his master, he mentally corrects himself- receives him in his private chambers.

He tells him that nothing has to change, if he doesn't want it to; that Erasmus has served him well, and he'd be glad to keep him at his side, unshackled and handsomely rewarded, as a lover and a personal attendant; that he's ready to offer him protection against a world he doesn't know.

There's kindness in his master's eyes as he speaks; kindness and concern and a soft fondness that makes his words feel genuine. Erasmus wants so badly too accept. The world is a cruel place, he knows; he knows he is naive and defenseless, that he could starve or be tortured or killed. He knows that his master is a good man: he has never hurt him, and he cares for his pleasure in a way no one else in his life ever has. He has saved him from his torturers in Arles, and now he is offering to help him again- to help HIM, a slave, someone who is worth less than the dirth beneath his feet. He'd be a fool to refuse, and yet...

And yet, while he kneels at the feet of the man he calls master, he hears the echo of his own voice, thick with the thrill of impossible dreams, as if carried by the winds of memory from a long ago night in the gardens of Ios : _“I want to be taken across the ocean. I want to see other lands. I want to see Isthima, and Cortoza, I want to see the place where Iphegenia waited, the great palace where Arsaces gave himself to a lover. I want – to feel what it is too-”_ and Kallias's voice, woven in moonlight and shadows. _“Live in the world”._

A forgotten yearning is rekindled in his chest.

He knows what he _should_ do, but, perhaps for the first time in his life, he is reckless.

 

The scars on his thighs throb in warning, a reminder of all that could go wrong. He ignores them.

 

“This slave is grateful for your generous offer, master,” he murmurs, lifting his head “but with your permission he chooses to leave.”

 

A shadow passes over Torveld's face, but then, reluctanctly, he nods his assent.

 

  
 

 

Erasmus looks at the pieces of his golden collar, discarded on the floor, and feels strangely empty. That collar reminds him of pain and hopelessness, yes, but it also represents everything he has ever strived to achieve. Suddenly, he remembers hundrends of nights spent wishing desperatly for his body to mature; he remembers a litter, and the clang of a bell in the gardens of Nereus; he remembers Kallias's smile, and prince Damianos, collared, looking at him with indomitable fire in his eyes.

“Leave them.” he tells the blacksmith as the man moves to remove his shackles. After all, he thinks, if the monarchs of two kingdoms wear those same manacles with pride, who is he to be ashamed of what they represent?

 

He leaves the palace with nothing but his golden collar in a shoulder bag. He has refused the prince's far too generous offers of a horse, food, even coins: he is nothing but a slave, after all (or at least he still thinks of himself as one). He doesn't want anything that doesn't belong to him by right. Truthfully, even the concept of owning something – he, that is used to being own- scares him, as does the knowledge of having choices. Erasmus has freedom, now, but he has no idea what to do with it.

He will have to find a way to earn his living, eventually, but the gold in his bag is enough to sustain him for a while.

 

 

After he sells the collar, the first thing he does is buying a kithara. The instrument is a familiar weight in his hand, like a small piece of home in this place of exile.

 

 

Erasmus doesn't know where he is going, just that he wants to put as much distance as possible between himself and the royal palace.

After days of walking in the countryside that surrounds Patras's capital, eating dry bread and sleeping rough, he finally stops at an inn.

 

The place is warm, and it smells amazing. A woman is playing a flute in the corner, and the air is buzzing with the chatter of the patrons.

 

The patrons themeselves are the problem. Erasmus is immediatly conscious of how big most of the men are, how strong and work-hardened. He knows that he wouldn't be able to defend himself against them, and even sweaty, poorly dressed and dishelved as he is he is starting to attract interested looks.

 

His heart hammering between his ribs, he makes himself small on the bench where the innkeeper has led him and tries to look incospicuous, answering the questions of the men beside him with silent movements of his head.

He doesn't know how to behave in the company of others: usually during a meal he is serving his master, or performing, or otherwise being ignored.

He is doing a fairly good job of going unnoticed, until one of the men, an enormous, dark haired farmer, points at his wrists and says , loudly enough for all the table to hear: “What's with the bracelets, boy? You a bed slave or somethin'?”.

Erasmus freezes. This is it.

Will this men expect him to offer himself to them? If he refuses, will they take him against his will? Memories of Arles run unchecked through is frightened mind, and his breath quickens. Stupid, stupid stupid.What the hell was he thinking? Why has he kept the shackles? He is weak and incapable and useless, he should have stayed with his master, he...

 

Before panic can completly drag him under, he notices that the girl in the corner has stopped playing and is now straddling a merchant's lap.

He sees an opening, and he takes it.

 

“Excuse me” he says, then takes his kithara and stands up.

 

 

The first notes drawn from the instrument calm him instantly. As always when he plays, Erasmus is swept away by music, adrift in a dimention where nothing exists but verse and sound, the notes plucked from the strings and the words from his heartstrings.

He is playig a song he composed himself long ago, when he was still a boy in the Gardens of Nereus and Kallias had just departed, leaving him alone with his own longing. He has never performed this song in front of anyone but Kallias.

 

His friend loved it, but Erasmus didn't think it fit for a banquet hall.

The text is in the unpolished dialect of Isthima, and the metre is unconventional, different from the solemn exameters of an epic poem, from the aggressive iambes of an invective and even from the elegiac couplets traditionally used in love poetry: in short, completly unappropriate for the palace of Ios.

And there is the content, of course: the lines are full of his furious but impotent jealousy, and describe the pain of watching the person he loved the most being offered to another against his will. They speak of passionate attraction, and of the sorrow that accompanies an inevitable but still hated separation: feelings absolutely forbidden to a slave.

Declaming this poem while he was training in Ios would have gotten Erasmus divested of his pin as surely as Kallias's kiss did.

 

But now, free and scared and alone in a strange land, Erasmus doesn't care about tradition or propriety. He gives himself over to the feelings bursting in his soul, and starts to sing:

 

“ _I think that man is like a god_

_Who faces you, and sits by you,_

_And listens to your gentle words_

_And to your silver laughter. But I-_

 

_My heart explodes within my breast;_

_One timid glance, and all my voice is gone,_

_My tongue breaks, and a subtle flame_

_Races below my flesh, my eyes_

 

_Refuse their sight, my ears are full of thunder,_

_Cold sweat clings to me, and I shake_

_From head to toe, my skin the color_

_Of grass: I am about to die, I think...”_

 

When he finishes, he realizes that the inn is silent.

Every pair of eyes is fixed on him, and they are not full of lust or desire, but of awe. It's not a kind of look he is used to receiving.

Slowly, a woman begins to clap in a corner; the sound spreads like wild fire, and soon the room is roaring with shouts. They ask him for another song, then another, and he goes on playing until dawn, giddy with exhilaration and not quite believing the enthusiastic comments that rain down on him.

 

When he performed as a slave, he was in the background: his voice was drowned by dozens of conversations, and even when someone was interested enough or bored enough to give him their undisclosed attention, it was never for long. He received compliments, of course (he still blushes when he remembers king Damianos's appreciation in Ravenel), but he was never the focus of the general attention.

He didn't drive people to tears, like he is doing now; he was never asked to sing what he liked, because he existed to satisfy the wishes of his betters.

Now he sings like he has never sung, pouring all of himself in his art, and he watches as people dance and laugh and cry, as they abandon games of cards and wine glasses to listen to his voice.

 

When morning comes he has a full belly, aching fingers and a purse full of copper coins.

The innkeeper pats him on the back and tells him that he is welcome here any time he wants, and is there any chance he could sing at his daughter's wedding next month?

Erasmus smiles.

 

 

From that day on, Erasmus travels with purpose. He stops at inns and village squares, he plays during festivals and funerals, for merchants and for peasants.

 

The earnings don't make him rich, but he can get by, and, more importantly, he gets a chance to give voice to a hundred of songs composed in the silence of a thousand nights when he was kept awake by unsatisfied desire, written in his head while he suffered in Vere, sung under his breath when the ship that brought him away from his homeland was rocked by the gale.

 

Anywhere he goes he is acclaimed.

He doesn't give it much weight: these people, he thinks, are simply unused to poetry; they don't know how refined music can be, how years of single minded dedication can make an instrument soar. He is certain that if they were to bear witness to the performance of any half-trained Akielon slave they would know that he isn't special or talented. He does what he was trained to do, nothing more; for him there's little difference between pleasuring an audience with his voice and pleasuring his master with his body: in both cases he is just an intrument, and the aim is the contentment of his patrons.

 

Truthfully, he knows that it's not at all the same, but he tries not to dwell on it too much, bacause it troubles him. He doesn't understand why he finds art more enjoyable than sex. He is a tool carefully crafted to excell in both fields, honed to perfection through years of instruction and gruesome training. The fact that he is more inclined to one than the other is an unforgivable flaw. It makes him similar to a kithara with three strings out of tune: an imperfect instrument, good only for half of what its work should be.

 

 

Then, one day, on the doorway of an inn, a boy catches him by his sleeve. “You are him, aren't you?” he asks, wonder in his eyes: “The _gold-shackled singer._ ”

Completely bemused, Erasmus can only nod. “I am, I guess. Why?”

The boy's face is split by a lopsided smile “Lord Tolomeus has heard of you. He has promised a golden coin to anyone who brings you before him.”

 

Erasmus doesn't know what to think.

Lord Tolomeus is a renown patron of the arts; he offers protection to poets and painters, sculptors and singers. Those who manage to gain his favour are awarded with fame: from Patras to Vere to Akielos nobles conted among themselves the honour of hosting one of Tolomeus's artists, who are received with a kind of respect and hospitality second only to those reserved for royalty.

He has heard of _noblemen_ who have traveled from lands beyond Vask in the hope of obtaining an audience with the lord, only to be judged too conventional or too daring, and then sent away after been gifted with a detailed description of their mistakes bordering on humiliating and with an armful of books that contain what, in the lord's respected opinion, is worthy of being considered art.

 

Erasmus has met him once, at Torveld's court.

His master had asked him, as ususal, to entertain his guests during their meal. Erasmus had played with downcast eyes, his hands trembling on the strings and his voice so soft it could barely be heard among the chatter that filled the hall.

He had thought, for a moment, that the lord was lookng at him, and had blushed soo deeply his cheeks felt on fire.

As soon as his master had given him permission to leave, he had hurried out of the hall and tried with all his might to forget he had just made a fool of himself in front of the greatest critic of the known universe. Not that it mattered, he had chided himself: Lord Tolomeus didn't concern himself with mediocre slaves (why should he?), and as longe as his master hadn't been embarassed Erasmus had had nothing to worry about.

 

And now Tolomeus wants to see _HIM_?

 

There must be some kind of mistake, he thinks wildly, and he wants to turn and run away, but the boy is already dragging him towards the palace in the centre of the city: “Come on!” he squeals, basically bouncing on his feet, “The sooner we get there, the sooner I get the money. I'm going to buy so many sweets I'm gonna need a second stomach, and then a dagger, of course, a REAL one, like those they give to the soldiers- I wanna be a soldier, you know? I will become a general, and I'm gonna slay a dragon and marry a princess...” Unable to get a word in edgewise, Erasmus follows.

 

 

 

Fifteen minutes later he enters the main hall, kithara in hand.

He walks between two wings of courtiers toward the dais on which Lord Tolomeus sits, advancing with his head bowed and a white knuckled grip on his instrument.

As he makes his way through the crowd he is terribly self-conscious of his travel-stained clothes, his uncombed hair, his sun-reddened skin. He is so different from the exquisite, unblemished youth who made heads turn in the palaces of Ios and Patras and Vere.

What is he even doing here? He hasn't been at the presence of a nobleman in months, and his anxious mind fails to remember the correct protocol, the proper movements and phrases and gestures of respect that have been drilled in his head since childhood.

 

When he reaches the carved wooden chair on which the lord is carelessly sprawled, he prostrates as deeply as he can. He waits in silence, a hundred questions running through his head: is his form correct? Is his short chiton covering the horrible scars on his legs? Is it even proper for him to bow like a slave? And if not, then how should he?

His thoughts are interrupted by lord Tolomeus's voice:

 

“So,” the man drawls “are you the shackled singer who has half this kingdom in upheaval?”

 

 _Half the kingdom_? Tolomeus can't be talking about him, can he? Then again, he supposes there aren't many singers that roam the street of Patras with an old kithara and golden manacles around their wrists.

“Yes, my lord” he says, still bowing deeply, his forhead on the marble floor “I think I am.”

 

“What are you waiting for, then?” The lord waves his hand impatiently. “Come on, minstrel. Do delight us with your oh so extolled poetry. Let's see if you can live up to your...” ther is a trace of mockery in Tolomeus's voice, carefully calculated to mine the self confidence of any man daring enough to seek his attention “... _reputation_.”

 

 

His limbs trembling slightly, Erasmus rises to a kneeling position and lifts his kithara.

The lord has given him an order. He can't refuse to perform, no matter how much he wants to, so he resolves to sing the most solemn epic poem he can remember (in the hope that it will be good enough for the tastes of this court), he will silently bear the scornful remarks that are bound to follow and he will be on his way as soon as he's dismissed. It can't be so hard, after all: he has entertained nobility before.

He exhales, slowly.

 

The firs notes of _The Fall of Inachtos_ begin to fill the silent hall, and his voice grows steadier as he loses himself in the words he once learned to please the crown prince of Akielos.

He realizes, in the back of his mind, that this is probably his best execution of this piece; he is under no illusion that it will be enough to please Tolomeus, but he still feels the first stirrings of pride in his chest.

 

Then the lord interrupts him. “This is not the first time I hear you sing.” he says thoughtfully, stroking his grey beard with two fingers “You are Torveld's Akielon slave, aren't you? The one he always boasted about.”  He gives him a considering look: “You're exactly as I remember: Perfect tecnique; flawless execution. But no emotion. No _spark_.”

 

Erasmus is too stunned by the fact that Tolomeus remembers him to take offense at the criticism.

The lord goes on : “I was told that your music could stop people in their tracks. That your voice could bring grown men to tears. Is this _really_ the best you can do?”

 

Is _this_ how people speak of him? Erasmus has no idea how to react.

 

“Your exellence,” he says “whoever told you this can only have heard simple songs I have composed myself, which I'm afraid are not as good as you were led to believe.”

 

“Let me be the judge of that.” says Tolomeus, reclining in his seat. “I want to hear these songs of yours”

 

At this, Erasmus looks up with wide eyes. “My lord!” he exclaims, scandalized, “My verses are hardly worthy of the hearing of noblemen.”

 

“My courtiers will find pleasing whatever I say they ought to: if I want them to applaud the nonsensical limericks of a drunkard, they will swear they are the height of modern poetry. Now _sing_.”

 

Who is he to refuse the demands of a lord?

 

With the steadiest voice he can muster, Erasmus begins:

 

  
_“ Some say an army of horsemen or_

_footmen or rowers_

_Is the most beautiful thing over the coal-black earth,_

_But I say it's that thing,_

_whatever it is,_

_that one loves and desires [...]”_

 

 

No one interrupts him this time.

Like that night at the inn, months ago, he sings a song after another, and his voice is unrestraind and wild, brimming with emotion, even breaking in places.

 

As the hours go by Tolomeus leans foward in his seat, as if trying to get closer to the source of the sound; eyes moisten and laughs bubble, and not a single person leaves the hall beore he is finished.

When he finally stops, fingers aching and voice hoarse, the day has bled into night.

 

Tolomeus clears his throat and blinks, as if waking from a reverie. “What's your name?”, he whispers.

 

“Erasmus, my lord”

 

“Erasmus of Akielos” the lord says, in a voice that carries to the furthest corners of the hall: “I hereby offer you a place in my court. If you were to accept, I shall be honoured as I seldom have been in my life.”

The murmurs that rise from the spectators testify the rarity of such a proposal.

 

For a moment Erasmus is back at Torveld's feet, as his master offers him an alternative to freedom.

If he stays here he will be rich; noblemen will treat him with reverence, and his name will be known in every corner of Patras and beyond. But he has spent enough time in the golden cage of palaces, surrounded by the excess and the treachery of aristocracy. Memories of Vere make him shudder.

 

The calling of the open road sings words of freedom in his blood.

 

He bows deeper than before.

 

“My lord, your offer is munific and I can barely believe your excellence deems me worthy of such a honour, but... ” he pauses, voice wavering with the sheer audacity of what he's about to do: “but I fear I must decline”. He holds his breath, waiting for the consequences of his impudence.

 

The court falls in a shocked silence. Even Tolomeus loses for a second his usual mask of disdainful impassivity. He recovers quickly. “Your decision saddens me greatly” he says “but you are a free man, and your life is your own. I aks, however, that you stay in my palace for three days and grant my scribes permission to put your works on paper, so that such beauty may be preserved in our library and spread throughout the world for the benefit of all.”

 

Giddy with relief, Erasmus nods. “I shall, my lord. Thank you.”

 

“Good .” says Tolomeus, and then he adds, the hint of a smile on his lips: “Now stand up and eat. I dare say you have earn it.”

 

 

 

Three days later Erasmus is back on the road.

He travels through cities and villages, and his hair grows darker, his skin rougher, his legs stronger. The summer sun paints freckles on his cheeks.

 

Soon he realizes that people wait for his arrival: in every backwater village in Patras, children are on the look out for the wandering singer with golden hair and gold-bound wrists.

Noblemen start to request his presence, even though they know by now that he never stays long in palaces; if anything, this makes them more eager to have him, as if he's some sort of prize to be contended.

 

As the months go by, Erasmus grows weary of Patras. The wanderlust that has blossomed in his chest in his youth urges him foward, and he knows he needs to move on.

 

In the evenings his eyes keep roaming south, toward Akielos. Towards home.

 

He dreams of white cliffs and olive trees, of the cry of th seagulls. But there is nothing in Ios for him, just bitter memories and broken dreams.

 

 

On the first days of winter he travels North, to Vask.

 

 

 

Erasmus spends more than two years among the nomad clans of Vaskian women.

 

He likes their straightfoward, uncomplicated society, and he is intrigued by their poetry: it's wilder, less polished, more primitive than anything he's heard before. There is something powerful and ancient in the words, in the guttural sounds of their language, something that reminds him of clashing swords and of drums beating by the coupling fire, resonating with his blood.

 

He sits with the raiders in the evenings, refusing cup after cup of hakesh and bearing the endless comments about his "inability to sire strong women", just so he can learn their lenguage, their epics, their history.

He sings his own songs by the fire when he's asked, but mostly he coaches old women into teaching him the oldest poems they can remember and and strives to replicate the sound of their voices, the rapid movements of their fingers on the drums.

 

When he feels confident enough, he starts to compose in Vaskian, and finds, to his amazement, that he is able to espress long suppressed feelings and wants he has never before found a way to voice.

 

In the hills of Vask he sings of torture, of burning metal, of the stifling darkness in the hold of a ship, and even, one particularly terrible night, of the pain of having another body force its way into his own.

But he also sings of love, of desire; Kallias is in his thoughts more than ever, the feeling of his treacherous kiss a ghost that haunts his every step.

For the first time he doesn't speak only of his longing, his gelousy, his suppressed desires: he draws upon the dreams that populate the darkest hours of his nights, upon the memories of his time with Torveld, and his words paint images of physical extasy, of unbridled passions. He allows himself to think of touching Kallias intimately, of knowing his body through more than just the brush of cheeks, the faint touching of lips.

He dreams of the last time they saw each other, the closed off look in Kallias's eyes, his own confused questions, and he pours the emotions into words. He writes of the hurt of betrayal, of the guilt that came when he finally realized what Kallias had actually done.

 

 

In front of the Empress, standing at a safe distance from the leopards chained to her trhrone, he sings a poem in the traditional metre of Vaskian epic. It's Kallias's story, a tale of love and bravery and remarkable self sacrifice.

 

His heart aches as he plays. He doesn't know what happened to his friend after that night: did Kastor discover his treachery and sentence him to death? Was he killed when king Damianos retook Ios? Did he ran away? Is he free, now? Is he alive? Is he happy?

 

Erasmus realizes, with a powerful surge of self loathing, that he will probably never find out, because he is too scared of the answer. As long as he doesn't know anything for sure, there is still a chance that Kallias has made it, that he has found peace. Because of his own cowardice he will never try to see Kallias again; and even if he did, how could he look his friend in the eye, knowing that he has blamed him for his suffering, hated him even, when Kallias had risked everything to save him?

 

 

The Empress keeps him at her court for a month, and he performs for her every evening, trying his best not to think of Ios. Of home.

 

He sings in Patran, in Akielon and in Vaskian, but even when solicitous scholars offer to teach him he refuses to learn Veretian. He pays no mind to the scribes and the translators that frantically scribble as he sings, avidly recording every word, every note, every intonation of his voice.

 

When the Empress dismisses him, he rides south-west.

 

 

 

He doesn't make it to Akielos, in the end. He lacks the courage. He goes to Delpha instead, that troubled border land that is now the centre of an unified new kingdom.

 

It's there that Erasmus actually understands how widely his reputation has spread: people sing his songs in every tavern, in every inn; merchants sell his poems on the street in four lenguages (those veretian translators must have done their job), both in thin, cloth- bound volumes for the poor and in artfully crafted manuscripts for the rich.

 

The first time someone catches sight of his hair and his shackles, the crowd goes in an uproar: people try to touch him, to drag him in ten different directions, and their shouts mingle in the air:

  
“It's him!”

 

“It's really him!”

 

“The gold-shackled singer is here! Come! Come and see him!”

 

“Erasmus! Erasmus!”

 

He loses himself in the exultation of the people. He still doesn't think he deserve their praise, but a part of him, the part that was trained in the garden of Nereus since infancy, insists that he just _has_ to please them. That's what he is made for, free man or not: it's a deeply ingrained instinct that will never be fully eradicated.

So he travels along the border and sings for them, sings until he looses his voice and his hands are bleeding. He should have known that the news of his presence in Delpha wouldn't be noticed only by the masses. About a month after his arrival he is summoned by Makedon, new Kyros of Delpha.

 

 

In the banquet hall he plays as best as he can, and he's surprised to realize that he is not afraid.

He is surrounded by Akielon noblemen, by the aristocrats that should have been his masters; a year ago he would have thrown himself on the floor and stayed there, unable to look up.

Now, as he scans the raptured public while he sings, he thinks that these people are not all that different from the farmers and workers for which he usually performs. It dawns on him that they are _just men_.

 _Just men_ , like him.

 

In that moment all the pieces seem to fall into place: Kallias and his innate nobility; Damianos, still regal even in chains; himself, and all his urges and desires that a slave should never be able to experience. All of them have always been _just men_.

There is nothing in him that makes him inferior to Makedon or Torveld, nothing that makes him unfit or unworthy. His hesitations, his flaws, are not the imperfections of a fauly instrument: they are simply an aspect of his humanity.

 

For the first time Erasmus understands the meaning of equality.

It's a sismic shift in his world, and his fingers falter on the strings. A surge of his old dread, of his ingrained fear to disappoint climbs up his throat, but he powers through it.

He has spent a month singing in front of men-eating leopards: he can survive a simple mistake in a room full of _people_.

 

 _Just people_.

 

_Like him._

 

 

 

 

When he finishes, Makedon smaks him on the back and hands him a cup of griva. “Good job, lad. Real good job. You've spread some good Old akielon pride out there in the world”

 

“Thank you, my lord” Erasmus stammers, unsure of how to behave. In front of any other lord he would have bowed, but Makedon is making that impossible.

 

The kyros waves his hand as if to shoo a fastidious inesct: “ 'nough of that _lord_ nonsense, boy. You are way more known and respected than my old ass. Hell, you have even royalties wrapped around those pretty fingers of yours.”

 

“What?” asks Erasmus, confused. Things are starting to get fuzzy at the edges; he blames the griva.

 

“Why, Damianos, of course. Don't know how you managed to make an impression on him. Never thought he'd care much for _art_ , that one. Must be your looks” Makedon gives a drunken glare to his hair, and scoffs. “Yeah, _that_ 's it. That boy is _hopeless_. ”

 

Erasmus has to fight the impulse to fisically recoil at the insuls thrown so carelessy against the King of Akielos. His musings on equality haven't brought him quite this far.

 

“What do you mean, my lord?” he says, suddenly curious. “I haven't seen his Exalted Majesty for years.” Could it be that the king himself has taken a liking to his poetry? Erasmus remembers Damianos asking him to sing at Ravenel, and he blushes.

 

“I haven't told you yet? That veretian rascal might be right, after all: I am turning into an old bull. _Don't tell him I said that!_ ” he shouts the last sentence jamming a finger in Erasmus's face.

“Never, my Lord!” he says hastily. He idly wonders what rascal, veretian or otherwise, would be so reckless as to insult the Kyros of Delpha to his face.

Makedon takes a large gulp of griva and dries his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyway, back to the point.” he says, slamming his cup on the table. “When he heard you were in Delpha _'his exalted Majesty'_ , as you so politely call him, sent word to all his vassals on the border. You are to be escorted to Ios, where you'll sing in front of our kings and then be oficially crowned poet.”

Erasmus drops the cup he's holding.

Makedon laughs and slaps him on the back again. “Time to go home, kid.”

 

 

Erasmus returns to Ios five years after he was sent to Vere. He can't hold back his tears as he sees white cliffs on the horizon. The air smells of oranges and olive oil and sea salt. He's _home_. He made it back.

 

He enters the city on horseback, Makedon's soldiers at his side, and the street are bursting with people that shout his name. He's gotten used to this kind of attention in the last few years, but somehow here, in _Akielos_ , it's different.

He feels a lump in his throat and he bows his head, blushing, trying to keep the crowd from seeing the tear traks on his cheeks. His hands tremble on the reins, and the sun, reflected by the white pavement of the central square, blinds him.

As the parade reaches the palace he can't help remembering the first time he was brought here, a naive and untouched boy in a litter, sheltered from the world and headed towards a future he thought was all he could ever want; a precious gift to a prince.

That same prince, now King of two realms, is waiting for him at the top of the stairs that lead to the palace's main entrance. He is dressed in purple red, golden laurels on his head, and he is so regal, so imposing he seems to Erasmus a god descended on the earth. There is a kind light in his eyes, a warm smile on his lips.

Erasmus is suddenly hit by the realization that he owes this man everything: his life, his safety, his freedom. He watches Damianos and he thinks, as he had the first time he saw him and had no idea who he was, “ _This is a man I'd be happy to serve_ ”.

He dismounts from his horse and prostrates himself as he hasn't done since that day in Patras, years ago, at the feet of lord Tolomeus.

“ _ **Exalted**_ ” he breaths out, and he wishes there was a way to express his admiration, his boundless gratitude; he knows that not even ten thousand poems could.

He sees dark-skinned feet approach him, and a moment later two strong hands grab him by the shoulders and lift him up. King Damianos, still smiling, kisses him on both cheeks.

“Erasmus of Ios, greatest of poets” he says in a solemn voice “We are honoured to welcome you back to your home.”

 

Erasmus enters the throne room dressed in a silken white chiton, the hem embroidered in golden thread. It's the finest garment he has donned since the day he left Akielos, and he relishes in the caress of the delicate cloth on his perfumed skin. His hair has been washed with chamomile and treated with oils, regaining the softness and the sheen that were robbed by too many days spent under the scorching eye of the sun. His cheeks are sligtly pink, his eyes faintly lined with golden paint.

When he looked in the mirror, back in his rooms, he saw himself as what he had once been supposed to become: a royal slave, a living work of art, breathtaking and unattainable, skilled and delightfully submissive. But then he noticed the subtle cracks in that perfect picture, the flaws that were the result of a life fully lived: the calluses on his hands ; the jagged scars on his legs; the strong calves, and the feet that had walked thousands of miles; the scuff marks on his shackles, their gold no longer unblemished; the lack of a collar; the shadows hidden behind his eyes.

The figure before him was no slave, he thought.

That was a _man._

That was simply Erasmus.

 

And so, bearing the traces of his past and of his present, of the life he should have lived and the one he ended up living, he advances towards his kings, step fluent and head held high.

He keeps his eyes on Damianos, as strong and stately as always. Laurent, the kind King of Vere, sits beside him, his eyes alight with what, in anyone other than a monarch, would be mischief. Then Erasmus notices the third throne: it's imperceptibly smaller than the other two, and it isn't carved in stone, but in dark wood. There, his expression unscrutable, sits prince Torveld of Patras.

 

Erasmus almost stops in his tracks when he lays eyes on his former master, but when Torveld's gaze meets his, the prince's lips tilt up in a smile.

 

Relieved and slightly dazed, as if he's walking in a dream, he goes on until he is a few feet from the royals. He bows, but he does not kneel.

When he looks up, there is pride in Damianos's eyes. Erasmus realizes that, for some unknown reason, the king his proud of him. _Of him_. Wrapping his head around this is almost impossible.

 

It's King Laurent that breaks the silence.

“Erasmus,” he says, his voice cool , but his eyes kind. Always so kind. “In a few years you have accomplished what most men don't achieve in a lifetime. You have traveled far and wide, learning something from every soul you've met, from every misfortune that has befallen you. You have managed to communicate through feelings, beyond the barriers of culture and lenguage, and in doing so you have united the people of four nations far more effectively than any military action or political propaganda ever could. For that, as monarchs, we thank you. ”

 

Despite the solemnity and the odd formality of the speach, Laurent's words hit Erasmus like a hammer to the chest. He feels tears starting to well up in his eyes, and he has to fight the impulse to drop to his knees. “I...” he manages to stammer after what seems like a century, but were probably a few seconds. “...Your Exalted Majesty, this slave...I mean, _I_...I...” On the verge of making a fool of himself, he looks at the kings with wide, pleading eyes...

 

… and he blinks, befuddled.

King Laurent looks, of all things, amused. _Smugly_ amused, even. (Is it proper to think of a king as smug?)

Before he can even try to understand what this means, King Damianos _actually_ _ **cuffs**_ _his royal consort on the nape._

“Stop embarassing him, Laurent ”he says, and when His Majesty the King of Vere has the gall to smirk at him in response, he shoots him a look that is in equal parts long suffering and fond. Then he turns towards Erasmus “It's all right, Erasmus.” he tells him gently, as if addressing a spooked dear.  “It's all right. Just sing”

 

“Yes” King Laurent cuts in, suddenly searious, “Sing for us. Please.”

 

Still shaken, but mildly reassured, Erasmus brings his kithara into position. He hesitates.

After Makedon had told him that he was to perform for the kings, Erasmus spent the entire travel to Ios composing an ode, both in Akielon and (with the help a Delphan soldier) in Veretian, that praised their deeds. He wrote about Damianos, a king even when a slave among slaves, and of Laurent of Vere, the one gentle white dove trapped in a nest of serpents. It was a beautiful story, full of compassion and bravery and devotion, and the music was so wonderfully intricate that he had to spend entire nights awake to master it. It would have been the perfect gifts for the monarchs, and possibly his masterpiece.

 

But now, standing in the halls of Ios with the garments of a slave and the mind of a free man, he's overcome by emotions and memories. He hears laughter and cries through the veil of the years, as if nary a day has passed since they were uttered. He feels the ghost of an embrace on his skin. Faint, in the background, he hears the sound of bells.

Suddenly he wants everyone to know. He wants every person in the world to know his story, because he himself might be of little importance, but there are those in his memories who don't deserve to be forgotten. He wants these people to feel what he felt all those years ago, when he was just a boy, determined and alone and deprived of affection.

He wants them to know what it means to love, love so intensely that your soul is aflame, and not be allowed to touch. He wants them to understand how the brush of cheek against cheek in a darkened columnade can both quell the flames and feed them, how desire can consume you as surely as starvation.

He wants to explain, as best as he's able, that a single kiss can hold more meaning than a thousand carnal encounters; that it can resonate through the body and the spirit even when lifetimes have passed, when every fisical trace of it has been erased by hundreds of unwanted touches, by dozens of far more intimate, though unwanted, caresses.

He wants to shout, wants to scream that a single touch of lips can be the pivotal moment of a lifetime, that it can be extasy and torture, betrayal and salvation, death and rebirth in one gesture.

His mind goes back to the verses he composed in the bare hills of Vask, that far off land where flesh and blood ache with passion.

 

Without even realizing it, he starts to sing _The Song of Kallias._

 

“ _His kiss was like the first drop of purple dye_

_that robs the pristine white silk of its purity_

_but in doing so makes it precious beyond anything_

_a king could own...”_

The music ends, fading like the last shades of a sunset in the night. Erasmus stands motionless in the silence, eyes closed, still not fully back to himself. His chest is heaving.

He hears the roaring applause of the crowd, the exhastic shouts of his name, even the noise made by someone (probably a servant) dropping the tray they were holding, but the sounds are muffled by the blood roaring in his hears. Before he opens his eyes he wishes with frightening intensity that, wherever he is, alive or dead, Kallias could hear him, that the words he has sung in their home could reach him, somehow, that his friend could feel his desperate longing.

 

When the crowd has quieted, the occupants of the thrones rise to their feet. They approach him slowly, each one bearing something in his hand: they are offerings, age-old symbols that are traditionally given to a poet as a sign of official recognition of his worth.

 

King Damianos crowns Erasmus with laurel, like a prince or a champion: it's the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a man in Akielos.

  
King Laurent crowns him with poppies; he tells him that in Vere they signify excellence in music and love poetry.

 

Prince Torveld gives him a kithara, holding it out with both hands like the precious offering it is supposed to be, his head bowed.

 

Erasmus takes it with unsteady hands, and carefully runs his fingers over the strings. It is an exquisite instrument, made of polished olive wood and beautifully inlaid; there is an elaborate inscription on the base. He looks more closely, and his mouth goes dry.

There, on the kithara he has just recieved from the hands of the man he used to call master, is a singol akielon word, written in the oldest known alphabet:

**ELEUTHERIA.**

_Freedom_.

 

He looks up at Torveld, unable to speak.

The Prince's lips curve in the same wistful smile he sported earlier, when Erasmus was advancing towards the thrones.“There is an ancient incription upon the door of the royal library in Patras: _' The work of art is a scream of freedom'_.” he says, something heavy in his tone “ You have been screaming for a long time, Erasmus of Ios. Please forgive me for not hearing you sooner.”

Erasmus looks at him, and he sees the man who saved him from a life of agony, who took the time to nurse him back to healt, who drew the first shiver of pleasure from his hurt, abused body.

 

Kithara in hand, he bows. “Knowing you, My Prince,” he says, voice thick with a trace of his old reverence, “has been the greatest honour of my life.”

 

Erasmus always thought he would someday sit by a king in Ios's banquet hall, but he never dreamt, even in his wildest fantasies, that he would dine with royalty as an equal. He sits between King Damianos and Torveld, poppies and laurels still on his head, a half-full cup of wine in his hand. Hours have passed since his coronation, and the feast in his honour is finally coming to an end.

The air is full of giddy, drunken laughter, and the servants keep pouring wine (after all, as Makedon is wont to remind him, _“No man is a poet who drinks water”_ ).

 

Erasmus feels oddly nostalgic; there is a strange emptiness in his chest, and the wine, far from making him merry, only increments his sense of detachment from reality.

He actually jumps in his sit when Damianos lays an hand on his shoulder without warning.

“Don't worry” he says, slightly slurring his words “It's almost done, we'll leave you in peace soon. But first,” he raises his voice for all the room to hear “let us offer our guest some proper Akielon entertainment!” The courtiers shout their assent, and King Damianos gestures to a servant near the back of the hall. The woman nods and disappears behind a service door.

 

“Our finest dancer will perform for you.” says King Laurent, addressing Erasmus over Damianos's massive shoulder. “You will like him, I think. He used to be a slave here.”

Erasmus's foggy brains takes a moment to process the words. A former palace slave? So some of them are still in Ios. What happened to the others? What of those of Kastor's?

Before he can gather the nerve to ask any of his questions, a door slams and the dancer enters the room.

 

In the silence that follows, Erasmus slowly takes in the lean, graceful body, the dark curls, the golden paint on his face that has been irredeemably smeared by the recent tear tracks on his cheeks.

 

The first thing Erasmus thinks is, absurdly, that this is an abysmal breach of protocol: no slave worthy of his training would _ever_ show up in front of his audience with the barest trace of tears on his face, let alone _that_ amount of smeared paint. This man's behaviour is completely inappropriate. _Tarchon would be so mad._

 

The second thing he thinks is that, in all the years he has known him, he has _never_ , _ever_ seen Kallias cry. Erasmus has always been the one who needed guidance, who craved comfort and reassurance, _not Kallias_.

Kallias is _strong_. He is iron-willed. He is imperturbable. He is so, _so_ very kind that he doesn't deserve any sort of pain. No tears should ever fall from those blue eyes.

What terrible thing has happened – he wonders, aching- to make _Kallias_ cry like this?

 

 

It's only then that it finally hits him: the dancer is Kallias.

He is _Kallias._

Kallias is _here_ , right in front of him.

 _Kallias is alive_. He's crying, granted, and his limbs are shivering subtly, but he's _not dead_.

And he's not wounded or fatally ill or starving on the streets.

He has not been sold too a cruel master, or thrown into a prison cell.

He's _here_. _Kallias_ is here. _Kallias..._

 

Erasmus doesn't notice that he has blanched, nor that the wine cup has fallen from his slack fingertips. He doesn't register the stunned looks that the guests are giving him, nor their murmurs of wonder.

Long forgotten feeling and smells invade his senses, and his hears are full of the sound of cherished voices.

Luckily for him, the strangled whimper that comes out from his lips is drowned by music.

 

Kallias starts to dance, his form impeccable, but his eyes fixed on the floor.

Erasmus can only watch him, not daring to believe in what he's seeing.

“ _You're here_ ”

His eyes devour every inch of exposed skin, every twitch of lean muscles; he spends an eternity staring at Kallias's hands as they draw intricate patterns in the air, and he remembers those same hands guiding his own on the strings of a kithara; he sees them tangled in his golden hair; he feels the faint echo of their touch on his lips.

“ _You promised me once in the gardens of Nereus that we'd see each other again, and I promise you now”_

He studies the lines of Kallias's strong arms, interrupted by the golden shackles on his wrists, and the elegant column of his neck, uncollared.

Kallias has grown, the last traces of boyhood gone from his features, but he is still _so beautiful_.

“ _A man only has to look at him to want to possess him.”_

He watches the gentle fall of his brown curls, the soft arch of his lips, but he can't see his eyes. Those wonderful blue eyes...

 

“ _You said you wanted to cross the ocean”_

 

...they were so empty that night; so desperate. He has to see them. He has to make sure that his friend's soul is in there, with the rest of him, that this dancing body isn't just a hollow shell. Why doesn't Kallias look up?

 

“ _I wish you could be my first”_

 

He needs to see. He _has_ to...

 

The dance comes to an end.

 

Kallias drops on his hands and knees, his forhead pressed on the floor. The perfect slave.

While the guests are still cheering, Damianos dismisses him. Kallias stands up.

When Erasmus manages to gather himself enough to do the same, his friend is already opening the service door.

He extends an arm towards him, ready to shout his name, but a strong hand on his wrist stops him.

 

“ _Wait_.” says Damianos “Wait. This isn't the time or place. Later. He will be in your rooms”

Erasmus looks at him, disbelieving. Does the king know who Kallias is to him? Reality has stopped making sense the moment his friend entered the hall.

There is a hint of understanding in Damianos's eyes. “He is scared.” he continues softly. “He didn't even want to perform. I didn't think he would, to be completely honest.”

The ache in Erasmus's chest is unbereable. He swallows hard, not caring that he's loosing his composure in front of a king. “All this time,” he whispers hoarsely “ _all this years_ , he knew I was alive. ” He look at Damianos with tears in his eyes. “Why didn't he come to me?”

“And why didn't _you_ look for _him_?” says King Laurent, abruptly, but not unkindly.

Erasmus's heart misses a beat.

 

Damianos pats him on the shoulder. “I'm afraid your questions are for him alone to answer. Just...” he looks towards the door, gaze distant, as if he is somehow following Kallias through the walls. “When you talk to him,” he goes on “Be gentle. He's...” he seems to be looking for a word, then he shakes his head. “Just be careful with him.”

As if Erasmus could ever be anything else.

 

Erasmus hesitates in front of the door of his chambers: he wants to enter, he _needs_ to, but he's _so_ scared.

Because, what if Kallias had been a vision?

Erasmus remembers things so vividly sometimes, he pictures the objects of his immagination with such precision that it's somewhat difficult to tell them apart from reality; and he's had this particular dream before: he has seen Kallias alive and well, smiling before him, has run towards his friend with open arms, only to watch him vanish into thin air. A shadow. A ghost. A phantom of his fantasy.

He should have touched Kallias in the banquet hall. He should have touched him, because his visions always dissolve when he reaches out, and he's never been able to caress Kallias in his dreams, to hold him, to kiss his lips...

He should have touched him, because if he had he would have _known_ , and he wouldn't be standig here, his world about to be ripped to shreds again.

 

He thinks of Kallias's tears, and he breaths, slowly. If there is even the slightest chance that what he saw was real, he has to go in, no matter the cost to himself. He owes Kallias that, at least.

His heart beating in his chest with all the force of a Vaskian drum, he opens the door.

 

 

 

As soon as Erasmus steps in, Kallias drops to the floor, exactly has he did earlier before the kings.

Kallias, his best friend, the person he loves most in the world, is kneeling at his feet. Erasmus almost hopes this _is_ a vision.

 

“ _ **Entheos**_ ” Kallias whispers.

 

His voice, though hoarse and trembling and wrecked, is so dear, so long unheard, that it hits Erasmus like a kick in the sternum; and the word, the ancient honorific reserved for the greatest of poets, sends a shiver down his spine. Not even the kings have called him that.

Gods, Erasmus would _never_ presume to _think_ that word in relation to himself, not even if every person in the world were to kneel at his feet and tell him that he has surpassed any other poet in worth. He just _wouldn't dare_. And now Kallias...

 

Erasmus is petrified. He notices, distantly, that Kallias is shaking.

 

When he speaks again his voice is so unsteady Erasmus almost doesn't understand him:

“This slave is here to beg for forgiveness.”

 

The words are enough to return the blood to Erasmus's limbs, and he takes an uncertain step foward, reaching outh with his hand as he has done earlier, across a hall full of nobility. He stops just shy of touching his friend's head, not daring to move further: if he's not real, he will disappear. If he is...

 

 

“ _Kallias_ ” he says, and the word is a shout of pain as much as it is a sigh of relief, his whole body vibrating with longing. He forces himself to go on, to say something, _anything_ to reach the bleeding soul of the man before him. “You are _not_ a slave. Not anymore.”

 

Kallias's forhead is still firmly pressed on the ground, and Erasmus has yet to see his eyes.

“I _am_.” Kallias says, his tone broken and defeated. The use of the first person is almost enough to alleviate Erasmus's horror, but then his friend speaks again : “I don't deserve to be anything else.”

Erasmus can't take it. He falls to his knees in front of Kallias, his outstretched hand finding its way to a trembling shoulder. There is solid flesh under his fingers,and spasming muscles and warm skin. Kallias doesn't vanish. He's real. He's _real_ , but he thinks- _he thinks_...

“That's not true” he whispers, his own voices almost unrecognisable. No one deserves freedom more than Kallias. _No one_. The fact that he doesn't deem himself worthy of it is more painful than a burning iron pressed against his flesh.

 

Oh, what would he give in this moment for a glimps of his friend's eyes! “Look at me.” he says.

“Look at me, Kallias, please.” Kallias shakes his head against the floor and, if possible, presses himself down even harder. Erasmus feels tears begin to fall from his lashes.

 

Helplessly, he bows down and presses his face against dark curls. He murmurs his next words against them: “There is nothing to forgive.”

 

Kallias recoils as if burned, scrambling away and looking at him with wide eyes. For a moment Erasmus looses himself in them, reveling in that gaze as a men long trapped under the earth might bask in the first caress of the sun. Then he registers the self loathing in them, the naked despair.

 

“ _How can you say that_?” Kallias chokes out, as if Erasmus has just blasphemed. “I betrayed you! I used your trust against you. Do you think I don't remember the look on your face, that night? The confusion in it? The pain?” he lets out a bitter, hysterical laugh. “I might as well have stabbed you in the back.”

“You did it to save me” says Erasmus.

“YES!” Kallias shouts, slamming his fist on the floor. “Yes, I did. BUT I FAILED” He is breathing heavily. His next words come out like sobs. “I know what happened to you. In...in Vere. They _told_ me. Those who were there with you. I know...all of it. Every...detail. Everyth- ”

A horrible sound pours from is lips, like the moan of a mortally wounded animal. He hides his face in his hands, his shoulders rising and falling erratically.

“It should have been me” he whimpers, and it is so painful that Erasmus almost flees. “You were _never_ supposed to suffer through that. You are so good, you didn't deserve...” he lowers his hands, but his head is still bowed; his next words are soft. “ _Every_ night. Every night for four years I've dreamt of them hurting you. And... each time, always, I wished I could have taken your place...and you must know that I....You can't forgive me, I know that, I do, but you have to believe me: if I could suffer all of your pain for you, I would, I would right now, Erasmus. Please, i won't ask you for anything else, but you _have_ to believe me, _please_ , you _have_ to...”

 

 

Erasmus wraps him in his arms. He doesn't think about it, about how this is the closest they've ever been to each other, how this is the very moment he has dreamed of for half his life. He just holds Kallias tightly against his chest, resting his forehead on his friend's shoulder and whispering reassurances against his skin, uncaring of the fact that he is frozen in shock and doesn't hug him back.

“I do. Of course I do, Kallias, of course I believe you. You saved my life. You _saved_ me, Kallias. And I'll forgive you if that's what you want, just don't beg like this, please, not to me, never to me...”

 

Slowly, he feels Kallias's tense muscles uncoil under his hands. He draws back just enough to see his face; Kallias is looking him in the eye, steadily, like he used to, like he never has this evening.

“I promised I wouldn't let you fall.” he tells Erasmus, very quietly, as if afraid of what he's going to say, but incapable of helping himself. “Remember that, Erasmus? ' _You won't fall_ '. I _promised_ you.” his gaze darkens “And then I pushed you down myself.”

Something breakes inside Erasmus's chest. “Kallias...”

“How can you not hate me?” Kallias interrupts him harshly, an hint of his old bravery in the words.

 

Erasmus wants so badly to explain, to tell him that maybe he believed he hated him, once, in Vere, but even then what hurt the most was the thought of _Kallias_ hating _him_ ; that when he'd realized what Kallias had done he had hated himself for being so blind; that Kallias is a hero, and people should write ballads about him. But the words are caught in his throat, and he can't speak, he can't find a way to make him understand, he can't...

Then he remembers.

 

“Didn't you listen to my song this morning?”

There's a faint trace of surprise in Kallias's eyes. “Of course I did, but...”

“But?”

Kallias averts his eyes, a self deprecating smile on his lips. When he continues he is, impossibly, shy. “...but I've dreamt about you so much I was sure that you weren't real.”

 

Erasmus almost wants to laugh at this. He suddenly remembers why he used to care for Kallias so much: their minds are carved from the same material.

 

“You did hear me, though.” he says, hopeful.

“Yes, I...” he watches as realization slowly dawns on his friend's face. Kallias looks at him with such incredulous awe in his eyes that Erasmus loses his breath. The adoring gazes of all the crowds of Akielos are nothing compared to this single glance.

 

“It was about me” Kallias says, as if he doesn't dare to believe it “Your song...you wrote _a poem_ about _me_.”

Tears start to fall in earnest down Erasmus's cheeks. “Kallias,” he chokes “they are _all_ about you.”

 

Kallias stares at him, lips slightly parted. He visibly thinks back to the morning, and replays the poem in his head; he remembers every loving word, every apology, every shiver of emotion in Erasmus's voice, and this time he _listens_.

Once again, tears start to fill his blue eyes.

“I am not worthy of that. ” he whispers. “Those things you said, Erasmus, I...” a sob is torn out of his chest “I don't deserve them.”

 

Erasmus looks straight at him, willing him with all his might to believe him, _really_ believe him when he says: “You _do_. You deserve _everything_ , Kallias, you...” the disbelief in his friend's face is too much. With a pained whimper, Erasmus lifts his hand to Kallias' cheek, and gently bushes away a tear with his thumb. “Thank you” he chokes, “Thank you _so much_ for what you did for me.”

For years these words have been locked inside his chest; he would have given anything just for a chance to say them out loud, for the opportunity to let Kallias know how grateful he is. Now that he has, he feels a terrible weight fall from his shoulders. He is reminded, distantly,of his golden collar tumbling on the ground.

Very, very slowly, Kallias lifts a trembling hand; he cups Erasmus's cheek gingerly, as if he thinks he's going to break a spell. Erasmus closes his eyes and leans into the touch, his entire world narrowed down to the warmth of Kallias's palm, the burning points where his fingertips skim his cheekbone.

Kallias lets out a startled breath. “You are _here_.” he says, like he can believe it only now, like he can trust the physicality of this touch as he couldn't trust his eyesight or his hearing. “You are _really_ here, Erasmus, aren't you?”

Erasmus nods, shakily. He wants so badly to reach out and touch in return, to drown the hurt in his friend's voice in pleasure, but this moment has all the beauty and fragility of a dew-drop poised on the edge of a stem in the cold light of a winter morning: a gust of wind, a ray of sun, and it will disappear forever into nothingness.

He's afraid to move.

 

Than he remembers Kalias's bravery on a long ago night, when he dared speak forbidden words in the silence of a moon-lit garden: “ _Would you...would you put your arms around my neck?_ ”

 

He summons every ounce of his strength to his lips. Speeking the next words is like jumping off a cliff, like taking flight, like falling to his death.

 

“ _ **Kiss me**_.”

 

Incredibly, Kallias does.

  


 

 

The first press of their lips is hesitant, almost non existent; they part imperceptibly, just enough for their joined breaths to fill the scant space between them.

Time is still. They are hovering on the edge of an unknown abyss.

 

Then Kallias dives in again, still gentle, but also urgent, as if starved; their lips part, and they taste the humid fire of each other's mouths.

If there is a point where his whole life was headed, a moment meant to grant meaning to his existence, Erasmus think that _this_ , right now, _is it:_ he could die here, he realizes, he could be killed right now and he would go without sadness or regret, his last memory the taste, the smell, the warmth of Kallias's lips.

 

They kiss for what seem like hours, and at some point Kallias fists his other hand around the hair on Erasmus's nape, and Erasmus throws his arms around Kallias's neck. They can feel every breath the other takes, every shift of their limbs, the pulsing of blood in their veins.

The world around them could vanish, and they wouldn't care, because for the first time in years they know with absolute certainty that they are REAL.

 

When they finally part, panting heavily, Erasmus is seized by the sudden need for more. He wants to touch every part of Kallias, to know him more intimately than any other ever has, to be known by him in return.

Wordlessly, he leads Kallias to the bed.

 

They almost never talk: words are useless, now, when there are no more walls between them and their bodies can speak their own ancient language, can dance to the rythm of a silent ancestral music.

 

While he's caressing his lover's arms, Erasmus' hands encounter the gold of Kallias's shackles: “You've kept them” he forces himself to say; it takes him a while, like he has forgotten how to speak.

Kallias smiles. “Of course I did.” he anwers, gesturing toward Erasmus's metal-bound wrists “I heard you had kept yours. How could I throw them away?”

Erasmus hugs him fiercely at that, and they roll on the bed like children on a meadow, their impossibly joyous laughter filling the quiet room.

 

Then Kallias sees the back of Erasmus's thighs. He stops in his movements, and a dark shadows falls over his face. He lifts his hand towards the scars, but he stops, fingers hovering above the marred skin. Erasmus is frozen.

When Kallias speaks, is voice is that of a stranger.. “I would have killed them.” The words are low, and cold, and deadly. “If I had been there, Erasmus, I would have torn them apart with my bare hands.”

This is so unlike Kallias (sweet, gentle, meek Kallias, the epitome of peacefulness and submission) that Erasmus wonders for a moment if this is not, indeed, a dream.

Then he thinks of what _he_ would have done if someone had tried to harm Kallias in that way.

He buries his head in the covers and he nods, his hands in white knuckled fists around the sheets.

He starts at the first brush of lips against his legs, unprepared for what is happening: Kallias is kissing his scars. He has seen the most damaged, uglier part of him, the living proof of Erasmus's brokenness, of his shame, and instead of recoiling in disgust he is worhipping it.

No one has ever touched him there but the men who hurt him: not even Torveld has laid hands on the scars, because Erasmus, ashamed, has always done his best to hide them with his clothes, with the controlled positions of his legs, even with paint. He almost expects it to hurt, but instead each gentle kiss is like a balm, quelling the pain that is still burning in his memories.

The sheets under is face are wet.

 

 

After a while he starts to take notice of Kallias's shuddering breaths, of the moisture dripping on his thighs. Kallias is crying too, he realizes, and his heart clenches.

He sits up and draws Kallias's head in his lap, carding his fingers through his curls.

He shushes him. “It's all right. I'm all right.” he says, his own voice heavy with tears. “It doesn't hurt anymore, Kallias. You took the pain away .”

He remembers uttering those same words when they were children, and Kallias had tended to his scraped knee. Maybe it's a good thing, he thinks, and not a sign of weakness, that Kallias is finally allowing himself to be consoled; there is a kind of strength in this too, after all, in this unguarded, unselfconscious release.

He weathers Kallias's sobs in silence.

 

 

They go on with their careful exploration after that, caressing and kissing and smelling every inch of their skin.

They are both unused to this kind of intimacy, to this gentle give and take. Sex has always been, for them, either a violation or an act of submission: they were trained to offer themeselves without a thought for their own pleasure, to stifle their needs and concentrate on the want of their masters.

For the first time they are allowing themselves to be cherished, and are cherishing another in return, without caring for protocol, or acrobacies, or self-restraint.

They are not performers in this bed, nor are they slaves.

They are lovers.

 

 _They are free_.

 

As he Kallias kisses his way down his body, Erasmus forgets about those who have touched him before: there are no violent strangers in his mind, no gentle masters, because their attentions were nothing like this; no one, not even Torveld, has ever managed to set his skin of fire with just the brush of fingertips.

 

And as he noses the hollow of Kallias's throat, Erasmus wonders how many men have taken his friend since Kastor, how many hands have hurt him during the years. He doesn't ask: he knows full well how much pain would be hidden behind the answer.

They are far from undefiled, both of them; and yet- Erasmus thinks- this is, in any way that counts, their First Night.

 

There are acts that are still too fraught with memories to be performed without shame or painful remembrance, so they avoid them: they just stroke each other to completion, and, when they are done, they still keep going, their thirst never quenched.

They never tire.

 

They never rest.

 

The last vestiges of the night find Erasmus in Kallias's arms.

“Come with me.” he says softly. “In the morning, when I leave. Come away with me.”

Kallias strokes his hair, silent. Then he whispers, afraid: “I don't know how to be free.”

Erasmus smiles. “Then I will teach you.”

  


 

They depart from Ios at down, without being seen, and Erasmus leads Kallias on the paths he has walked during the years. They go to Patras and Delpha and Vask, they cross the ocean and climb over mountains, they visit lands that are the stuff of legend.

They make love. They dance. They sing.

 

Years later, when they start to feel the weight of time in their bones, they return where it all started: they build a house in the Gardens of Nereus, and students from four countries come in droves to learn the art of poetry from Erasmus of Ios.

 

They teach them what they've once been taught: how to sing; how to play; how to dance; how to love.

They teach them how to be free.

  


 

Erasmus of Ios, the gold-shackled singer that will be remembered for centuries as the greatest poet of his time, dies of old age in Kallias's arms.

 

His ashes are scattered to the wind from that garden on the white cliffs of Ios where he once spoke of freedom with the only man he ever loved.

The next morning, Kallias sits against a tree in that same courtyard, his legs crossed, his eyes fixed on the ocean, and Erasmus's old kithara in his hand.

For three days and three nights he plays, singing songs in every known lengauges and in ones never heard before on this side of the sea. He sings of love, and bravery, and betrayal: he sings Erasmus's songs. _All_ _of them_.

 _(They were all about you_ )

 

On the fourth day they find him dead under the tree, his eyes closed and a sweet smile on his lips.

He has been separated from his love once before: it won't do to keep each other waiting again.

 

Erasmus and Kallias, united and free in life and in death, roam the invisible paths of the sky as they have once wandered on the streets of this earth.

 

They say their laughter can still be heard from the white cliffs of Ios, in the roar on the ocean, in the song of the wind.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I think a few explanations are in order:  
> \- the last poem sung by Erasmus is mine; the other two are fragments 31 and 16 by Sappho.  
> When I decided that Erasmus would become a poet I needed a Greek poet to identify him with, and I immediately thought of Sappho because of the many affinities between them. The Garden of Nereus, for example, reminds me of Sappho's thiasos: both are circles of people of the same sex , whose aim is to educate young people in the liberal arts and the tecniques of physical love. Erasmus's separation from Kallias when the latter is ready for his first night is similar to Sappho's parting from the girls she loved when they, inevitably, got married.  
> The ending is also a reference to Sappho: according to the legends, in fact, her voice can still be heard on the cliff from which she jumped, killing herself.  
> \- The dialect of Isthima in which Erasmus writes is supposed to be Sappho's aeolic dialect,and the metre he uses is the sapphic stanza, composed of three sapphic endecasylabic verses and one adonean line  
> \- "entheos" is an ancient Greek word that was indeed used to define poets (I've read it a couple of times in relation to Esiod ). It literally means "god inside": it was meant to convey the very greek idea that the poet is a vehicle for divine inspiration, a medium between this dimension and another, someone akin to a prophet or a seer. I don't know if I've managed it, but I wanted to present Erasmus in this light; hence his dreams, his very vivid memories, his sudden revelations, the way past and present seem to coexist in his head.  
> \- "Eleutheria" is the Greek word for freedom  
> \- Lord Tolomeus is named after Ptolomy I Soter, founder of the Library of Alexandria and great patron of the arts during the Hellenistic Period  
> -The Vaskian epic poetry is supposed to be a blend of Homer's works and the Epic of Gilgamesh.  
> \- "No man is a poet who drinks water" is a quote by Horatius which I have long since vowed to live by;  
> -"The work of art is a scream of freedom " is a quote by the artist Christo.
> 
> \- The image at the end is a drawing of Apollo.I don't know who made it, but I've had it on my computer for a while and it's basically how I picture Erasmus in this.
> 
> Woah, I thinks that's all!  
> Thanks for reading this. I really hope you enjoyed it.  
> You can find me on tumblr as @fragiledewdrop or @ahandfulofsapphires (my captive prince side blog)  
> Let me know what you think; )


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